New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Seite 8

Understanding Six Water Leadership Roles

Water Education (UNESCO-IHE), the IWC and Nyenrode Business University in the
Netherlands to help emerging water leaders from developing countries. UNESCOIHE also runs water leadership short courses for masters students from developing
countries.

All of the previously mentioned leadership programmes, short courses and
master classes focus on ‘emerging leaders’ rather than leaders at the executive or
political level. Typically, these emerging leaders are responsible for leading challenging,
cross-boundary project teams, are team leaders (i.e., have direct reports), or are midcareer leaders who are preparing for senior professional or executive roles. They are
targeted, as they typically have enough time to attend a comprehensive programme;
they have many years left in their careers to apply new knowledge and skills; and are
not yet ‘set in their ways’ (see Adair 2005). This